On Apr 21, 1:58 pm,
knews4u2c...@yahoo.com wrote:
On Apr 21, 9:29 am,
knews4u2c...@yahoo.com wrote:
On Apr 19, 4:49 pm, "Paul Thomas" <paulthomas...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
knews4u2c...@yahoo.com> wrote
The Fury of the Poor
So which came first....poor.....or hungry?
Ask the Japanese:
* Justin Norrie, Tokyo
* April 21, 2008
* Page 1 of 2
MARIKO Watanabe admits she could have chosen a better time to take up
baking. This week, when the Tokyo housewife visited her local Ito-
Yokado supermarket to buy butter to make a cake, she found the shelves
bare.
"I went to another supermarket, and then another, and there was no
butter at those either. Everywhere I went there were notices saying
Japan has run out of butter. I couldn't believe it — this is the first
time in my life I've wanted to try baking cakes and I can't get any
butter," said the frustrated cook.
Japan's acute butter shortage, which has confounded bakeries,
restaurants and now families across the country, is the latest
unforeseen result of the global agricultural commodities crisis.
A sharp increase in the cost of imported cattle feed and a decline in
milk imports, both of which are typically provided in large part by
Australia, have prevented dairy farmers from keeping pace with demand.
While soaring food prices have triggered rioting among the starving
millions of the third world, in wealthy Japan they have forced a
pampered population to contemplate the shocking possibility of a long-
term — perhaps permanent — reduction in the quality and quantity of
its food.
A 130% rise in the global cost of wheat in the past year, caused
partly by surging demand from China and India and a huge injection of
speculative funds into wheat futures, has forced the Government to hit
flour millers with three rounds of stiff mark-ups. The latest — a 30%
increase this month — has given rise to speculation that Japan, which
relies on imports for 90% of its annual wheat consumption, is no
longer on the brink of a food crisis, but has fallen off the cliff.
According to one government poll, 80% of Japanese are frightened about
what the future holds for their food supply.
Last week, as the prices of wheat and barley continued their
relentless climb, the Japanese Government discovered it had exhausted
its ¥230 billion ($A2.37 billion) budget for the grains with two
months remaining. It was forced to call on an emergency ¥55 billion
reserve to ensure it could continue feeding the nation.
"This was the first time the Government has had to take such drastic
action since the war," said Akio Shibata, an expert on food imports,
who warned the Agriculture Ministry two years ago that Japan would
have to cut back drastically on its sophisticated diet if it did not
become more self-sufficient.
snip
And from sea to shining sea.....http://nysun.com/news/food-rationing-confronts-breadbasket-world
Food Rationing Confronts Breadbasket of the World
By JOSH GERSTEIN, Staff Reporter of the Sun | April 21, 2008
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Many parts of America, long considered the
breadbasket of the world, are now confronting a once unthinkable
phenomenon: food rationing.
* Separator
* Comment
* Share
* Print
* email
* Separator
Major retailers in New York, in areas of New England, and on the West
Coast are limiting purchases of flour, rice, and cooking oil as demand
outstrips supply. There are also anecdotal reports that some consumers
are hoarding grain stocks.
At a Costco Warehouse in Mountain View, Calif., yesterday, shoppers
grew frustrated and occasionally uttered expletives as they searched
in vain for the large sacks of rice they usually buy.
“Where’s the rice?” an engineer from Palo Alto, Calif., Yajun Liu,
said. “You should be able to buy something like rice. This is
ridiculous.”
The bustling store in the heart of Silicon Valley usually sells four
or five varieties of rice to a clientele largely of Asian immigrants,
but only about half a pallet of Indian-grown Basmati rice was left in
stock. A 20-pound bag was selling for $15.99.
snip>- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -
Oh pity the humanity with all this pissing and moaning.
Fifty years ago I was taught that the prices of a commodity in a
normal market is determined by the intersection of the supply and
demand curves, without other constraints being imposed. Therefore, to
maximize my profit, I increase my prices until demand falls off, if I
want to maximize my profits. (A concept straight out of Adam Smith's
"Wealth of Nations".)
In other words, as anyone who sells on eBay already knows, you let the
market determine the selling price.
So why all the uproar about the cost of fuels? Evidently the demand
can sustain a price above $3.00/gallon, but I strongly suspect that
when the price goes above $4.00/gal, demand will sharply fall off, and
the price of gasoline accordinly.
Something that nobody seems to take note of that back in the 1950s
when gasoline sold at $0.26/gal, people of comfortable means earned
typically between $5,000 to $10,000 per year, and a 2,000 square-foot
home in a very comfortable neighborhood sold for less than $30,000. A
starter home sold for around $7,000, Cigaretts sold for 23-cents a
pack, and when you put a quarter into the cigarette vending machine, 2-
cents were returned next to the pack.
Since the 1950s, inflation has resulted in the devaluaton of the
dollar now over 90%. What was a dollar in the 1950s is now only about
9-cents by my simple calculations. The Arab oil merchants are not
responsible for this, only Americans are to blame. We began this
decline simpy by going off the gold standard, and printing as much
money as we needed because the only cost to do this was the paper and
ink, a very stupid move in my judgement.
So, rather than pissiong and moaning, why not attack the inflation
problem and fix it. This would mean a completely new definition of the
dollar, and pinning it to something of fixed value, like gold, silver
or platinum, and then sticking with that valuation and insuring that
we have the precious metal assets to back up that newly defined
dollar. Such a move would be very painful for many Americans, but
would return us to the real world, rather than the mythicial world in
which we now live.
Harry C.
